I just love pink rhubarb – and now that it’s in season and available from Ocado, you’ll find it works beautifully in this simple hazelnut frangipane tart, spiked with orange and ginger. My slightly left-field pastry technique is to line the pastry case as soon as the pastry is made, and then chill it afterwards – it’s so much easier to work with than fridge-cold pastry, and a quick stint in the freezer gives it the necessary resting time.
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Rhubarb and hazelnut frangipane tart
Prep 40 min, plus chilling time
Cook 45 min, plus cooling time
Serves 8-10
For the pastry
250g plain flour
150g butter, cubed
1 medium free-range egg
1 pinch salt
For the hazelnut frangipane
100g roasted chopped hazelnuts
75g caster sugar
75g butter
60g flour
2 tsp ground ginger
2 medium free-range eggs
For the rhubarb
400g pink rhubarb
80g sugar
1 orange, zest only
For the pastry, tip the flour, butter and salt into a food processor, and blitz until the mixture looks like sand. Add the egg and blitz again very, very briefly until the dough comes together into a rough ball. Don’t wash the food processor – you’ll use it again in a moment.
On a well-floured surface, roll your pastry into a large circle, about 3mm thick. Carefully use your rolling pin to lift the pastry and line a 23-25cm tart tin with a removable base (25cm external diameter, not internal). Very gently pat the pastry into all the corners of the tin, use a sharp knife to trim the excess, and prick the base with a fork a few times. Transfer the pastry case to the freezer to chill for 15 minutes. Use any excess pastry to line smaller tart tins, or wrap and freeze for future use. (I prefer to make slightly more pastry than have too little to line the tart case.)
Meanwhile, make your frangipane. Tip the roasted chopped hazelnuts and sugar into the food processor, and blitz until the hazelnuts are very fine, like ground almonds. Add in the butter, flour, ginger and eggs, and blitz again briefly until you have a thick paste. Scrape the frangipane into a container and refrigerate.
Preheat the oven to 180C (160C fan)/400F/gas 6. Once the pastry has chilled for 15 minutes, line it with crumpled baking paper, and then tip in a tub of baking beads, or rice. Blind bake for 10 minutes before removing the baking paper and beads, and then bake for a further 5 minutes until the base of the pastry is just sandy to the touch.
Let the tart case cool down while you prepare the rhubarb: cut the stalks into diagonal pieces of about an inch, then toss in a bowl with the sugar and orange zest.
Once the case is cool, increase the oven temperature to 200C (180C fan)/425F/gas 7. Spread the chilled frangipane over the base of the pastry, and then arrange the sugared rhubarb in a pattern of your choice. Scatter over the remaining sugar and zest.
Bake the tart for 30 minutes, until the frangipane has slightly risen – a skewer inserted should come out clean. Let the tart cool for 20 minutes before serving. You can make this ahead of time, storing it in the fridge until needed, and then gently reheat before serving.
Find all these ingredients at Ocado.com, with a larger range of organic products than any other supermarket.
